My Random Ramblings on Zimbabwean Sport

I am a Zimbabwean guy who doesn’t like sport. A lot of Zimbabweans would see at least two things wrong with that simple statement. First of all I am a guy: I should love sport. Second of all, I am Zimbabwean: I should love sport.

A friend of mine says this guy
 looks familiar - I mean c'mon!

Zimbabwe is a sporting nation. It loves its soccer, its cricket, its tennis…and the like. I have come to notice, however, that any other sport that is not soccer gains an audience only as a means of whiling up the time until the next big match arrives. Whenever there is something huge going on in the game of soccer, the nation kind o’ goes somewhere in-between fanatical and outright nuts.

And it doesn’t have to be local soccer either. Some individuals know the welfare of international soccer teams better than their own families.

A guy can, for instance, name the whole line up of a team in the Spanish Premier league, plus the players on the bench, the players out on injury, as well as the name of the guy who got dropped out of the final lineup because he was found the night before in a compromising position.

I find that scary, and that is one good reason I do not go for soccer. Everyone is an expert and I could never keep up. This usually left me feeling all ignorant and stupid. So I came up with a simple mantra: if you can’t join them, ignore them. If I show complete disinterest, then nobody would expect me to know anything. Perfect.

I have nothing against tennis though. Infact, I love it! For one thing, Zimbabwe has a very colorful tennis history. From way back in the 1950’s, this country’s been making waves on the international scene up until a couple of years ago.

For another, I had a chance to learn how to play it a little: it was a breeze! All I had to do was concentrate on not losing the ball in the bushes some 100 meters away from the court. Any idiot could do that. Later on, I could manage to make the ball mostly go where I wanted it to go (that is, any place over the net and hopefully not over the court fence). For a little while I actually thought I could be the next black Black.

And there is one more reason I love this game: the only tennis injury I know is harmlessly called ‘Pulling a Hamstring’. I don’t know what or where a hamstring is, or how you can pull it, but it doesn’t sound all that bad. Soccer has a much wider, and a much more uncomfortable vocabulary to describe injuries.

I do have a lot against the game of cricket. Actually, I don’t even think it should be called a sport. See, a solemn event taking a dozen or so men dressed entirely in white a number of days to play, complete with tea and lunch breaks, should be re-categorized as a religious festival….along the lines of Easter, Ramadan and Hanukkah.

I find test cricket long and boring. I guess a lot of people did too, which is why they must have introduced One Day Internationals back in 1971. Still, the game insisted on being boring so they introduced 20/20 cricket in 2003, which lasts a much more humane 3 and a half hours.

I suggest they further cut that down to just about an hour – then you’ll see some real action! And maybe, just maybe players can actually lose weight whilst playing the game.

I am a Zimbabwean guy who doesn’t like sport. I don’t care how many things you see wrong with that statement, but I’m quite cool with it. True, I might miss out on all the ‘thrills’ fans supposedly experience during games, but I also plainly remember being the only one with a hefty appetite, and a good night’s sleep after some not too fascinating sporting events!